Broody egg problem - questions

[dreamofwinter]

I'm still learning about broody hens and this one's been hard to describe in a way that brings up any search results.
I have a hen - a pullet, really, about 10 months old, but I thought I'd indulge her in brooding. I put four eggs from mature hens known to have high fertility and healthy hatches under her.
When I candled at 10 days, all of the eggs seemed a little off. Two were clearly fertile, but were early quitters, so I pulled and tossed them. The other two appeared to have viable embryos and visible blood vessels though I wasn't as confident as I usually am. I left them to see how it went.

Now it's Day 19 - I candled them again last night. The contents of the egg move all over when I turn it, including the air cell - just slips all over the place, and takes up like half the egg. Obviously they're no good. Similar eggs from the same known good hens are under two other broodies and developing totally normally including one batch that was set the same day.

My questions are:

1. Did the pullet do (or not do) something to cause these eggs to quit/develop strangely/have loose air cells? Could this be from other hens disrupting the nest during her brief eat-and-poop breaks?

2. What are the odds that she'll get up on her own in the next few days when nothing hatches (I've put dummy eggs under so that we don't have a stink bomb)? I have other eggs in various stages I could steal from other broodies, but if she's doing something wrong I don't want to lose more. I guess I can put one or two newly hatched chicks under her if I have to, but frankly I don't have much confidence in her at the moment with her being young and low ranking.

Needless to say this has been educational - thank you in advance for any answers.

 

[Chicken_tiger_catt]

I have a bird around the same age, and she is my first experience with hatching eggs under a hen. I can't say for sure what the problem is, but how old is your egg layer that you took the eggs from? what about your roo?

 

[dreamofwinter]

The eggs were from a few different groups - one roo is just under 2 and the other is a year old. The hens and pullets are similar ages.
In particular, the eggs from the year old roo and his flock have had almost 100% fertility/hatch success this spring, so it was startling that they were quitters.

 

[Ridgerunner]

1. Did the pullet do (or not do) something to cause these eggs to quit/develop strangely/have loose air cells? Could this be from other hens disrupting the nest during her brief eat-and-poop breaks?

I have no idea what happened. My hens hatch with the flock and sometimes the others do lay eggs with the broody. I've never had anything like that happen.

With only 4 eggs you have a fairy small sample size. It is not that strange to me that you would have two not developing, just bad luck. The odds are the same for each egg, sometimes the odds are against you.

It sounds like the other two quit soon after they started to develop. Again, that can happen even if the hen or pullet did everything right. I see that in may hatches all of the time. Have you done something to anger the odds gods?

2. What are the odds that she'll get up on her own in the next few days when nothing hatches

Pretty poor, especially the way your odds are going. Typically a hen stays broody until she uses up all the excess fat she stored before going broody. Then she breaks. I often take a week to collect hatching eggs when a hen goes broody and I have yet to have one that quit before the eggs hatched. Some can go well beyond 5 weeks.

I don't have much confidence in her at the moment with her being young and low ranking.

I've had as good luck with a first time broody as with an experienced broody. I've had as many problems with experienced broodies even after thy have successfully hatched and raised chicks as with first timers. To me each time is a one off, anything can happen. But when one of my broody hens fails her first time I do not give her another chance. I tried that a few times and the second chance was often a failure too.

In your situation I would break her from being broody. You'll probably be happier that way.

 

[dreamofwinter]

In your situation I would break her from being broody. You'll probably be happier that way.

Pretty sure you're right! Thanks for the input. One of the things I love most about keeping chickens is that I learn new things from them and about them every single day